Law of Talos: Karl Returns!
by Arch Villain
Summary: Karl returns to taitle as a human, but still retains his abilities as an animated statue. What dangers now await him in the city? If you have idea who karl is, i suggest you watch Unknownperson's animations on deviantart.
1. Chapter 1

A woman sped quickly across dark streets, desperately trying to escape. She rounded a corner and hit something… or someone. She fell to the ground and noticed a dark figure standing above her.

"Uh, ello miss." She shrieked in fear. "Good ev'nin to you too…"

The dark figure offered a hand. She shakily accepted it, and was pulled up. She came face-to-face, or rather, face-to-top hat, with a small, gruffy man with a dusty mop.

"Anythin' I can do for you, miss?" She nodded shakily. "Run, just run, as fast as you can!" She continued her run down the street. "Cor, 'at was on weird lady." His thoughts were shortly ended by a black hammer colliding with the back of his neck.

The woman rounded again into a dark alleyway, sure she had escaped her pursuer. She decided here was a good place to stop, given she hadn't seen him for the past mile or so. She was so focused on the fact that she was safe for the moment, she didn't notice the figure perched on the roof above her. Even as the figure dropped down, she was oblivious to its existence.

"Deary me, arma" She snapped her head to the side, looking for the source of the voice. "Look, here's the one who thought she could _escape._" The last word absolutely dripped with venom.

A man emerged from the shadows of the darker part of the alleyway. Grey scar on his eye and a raven perched on his shoulder, it was unmistakable, this was the man who had been following her.

"G-g-go away!" "Or what? Need I remind you of who has superior firepower?" with that, the raven on his shoulder transformed into a cutlass, and placed itself into his hand. He sifted the blade through her ruby hair before softly pressing it into her jugular.

"I wouldn't move if I were you. A sudden move might frighten me and cause a rather… unfortunate event to occur." He pressed the cutlass slightly harder into her fair skin, drawing a miniscule amount of blood.

While distracted by his blade, she didn't notice as he hit a set of pressure points on her neck.

Her vision began to blur and she felt a dull pain in the back of her skull as she fell to the ground.

The stars and night sky began to blur as she lost consciousness.


	2. Memories, like water

_She woke up, sweaty, her red waist-length hair matted to her back and forehead. Her chest was rising and falling quickly in fight-or-flight response. The pace of her heart slowed as she realized she was in no danger. She was in her home, in her bed, snuggling into the chest of her husband. _

"_Rachel? Is there something wrong, honey?" Her husband spoke, his shoulder length dirty-blonde hair out of its usual pony-tail. "No, nothing's wrong. I just had that dream again." He smiled at her. "You mean the one where we met?" "Yeah, that's the one." She buried her face into the crook of his neck, and breathed in his scent. He smelled of the carnival; like cotton candy and the fresh air at the top of the Ferris wheel. _

"_You know, after all these years, you still smell of that theme park where you used to work." He took in a light whiff of her hair. "And you still smell of strawberries. Oh, and Roses!" She giggled. "Oh, Karl! You always knew how to make me laugh." He sighed. "You know I would do anything for you." "Always and forever, Karl." _

And that was the last he'd seen of her…

When he'd awoken that morning, she was gone. And on the table, along with her violin, was a note. In cut and paste letters it had said:

**We have your wife. Do not expect to see her again. **

He had sent the letter to the police for fingerprints, but it turned up empty. Needless to say, he had done much investigating on his own. He had Arma again, he had even killed men who had opposed him in his search. And after all that research, after everything he had gone through…

It had led him back here… to Taitle.

Yes, back to this… wretched excuse for a city. Where he had fought many a battle for his life and that wish that he ended up not getting. Fortunately, after a series of events, he had become a human, and was able to be with his Rachel. But enough about that. Now he needed to focus on getting her back.

Whilst walking among the streets, he noticed movement in one of the alleyways. He moved quickly enough to dodge the flurry of ice spears thrown at him.

A figure sped out of the alleyway and attempted a physical attack at Karl, but only succeeded in lodging its fist in the concrete wall. "Wow! You are a quick one, strong by the looks of it too… OH! Would you look at that! Why hello Aqua-boy!" Mizuno, the so called "mer-boy" had his fist lodged in the wall. Something was off, though. He kept on… blurring, like he was fading in and out of existence or something.

"Karl." Karl snapped his attention to Mizuno

"You shouldn't be here right now. The city doesn't want you here." "Huh?"

Even for Mizuno, this was incredibly odd.

"Speak for yourself!" with that, he thrust the black cutlass that was arma through Mizuno's chest.

The blade simply passed through him, with no hindrance. Something was off. Mizuno simply smiled, showing off his jagged teeth. "That won't work against me here." This was definitely weird. Mizuno was acting crazy, and conventional attacks weren't working against him. And if that weren't enough, Karl's outfit had changed back to that he had in the tournament.

With blinding speed, Mizuno dislodged his fist from the wall and delivered a solid punch to Karl's gut. Karl was launched a considerable distance, but the air time had given him the ability to recover himself quickly before landing solidly against the concrete wall. He stuck arma into the wall to keep himself from falling down. Karl's left eye twitched. 'That was close… something's wrong here' He jumped to another wall, evading a wave of water arrows. 'Whenever I try to attack him, he's intangible… but when he attacked me, he would have had to been tangible for at least a moment for the impact to connect. Aha!'

Mizuno jumped at Karl, still on the wall. Karl, much to Mizuno's surprise jumped at him. Arma had wrapped itself around Karl's arm, giving his arm a black color, and an axe blade covered his hand. He bypassed Mizuno and stabbed in the back with the axe blade, leaving it the blade in place. He delivered a nose-shattering punch to Mizuno's face, and he was sent flying.

"Do you like your present! It'll keep you bound in this reality long enough for me to finish you!"

He rushed over to Mizuno and grabbed him by the collar, and hoisted him up to eye level. The little bit of arma left on his hand transformed into a spike leading off his wrist. Karl stabbed Mizuno, over and over and over. It was a gory site indeed. He let go of Mizuno, and the blade of arma came off his hand and out of the body, and turned back into a raven. As soon as the axe blade left him, Mizuno changed.

His outward appearance fizzed off, and revealed a, black, smoky, shadowy creature. The… thing was obviously in horrible pain. It slowly withered and then went up in black smoke.

In its place, as Karl saw, were pictures. Pictures of… the memories he had of Mizuno! The creature had obviously used the memories Karl had of Mizuno to form a disguise and abilities based on what Karl had gathered about him! Taitle was supposed to be the city of memories, but this was just ridiculous.

Oh, well. Just another mystery to solve.


End file.
